Pakistan EdTech Blog - Digital Literacy for the 21st Century

For the past three years, Khud Initiative has been tackling Pakistan's education crises via self-learning and project based learning. So far we have transformed the lives of over 400 underprivileged children. And by the end of 2019, we plan to have another 500 underprivileged kids graduate from our digital program. Now our team is focusing on enabling these kids by incubating their ideas and mini-startups.

In our first effort, we had a group of young women who had zero digital literacy. That went on to successfully build a Pakistani fashion website, garnering about 150,000 page views.

So far, Khud has launched 2 mini-startups. First, a group of 5 young women are building an automation blog that aggregates the best stories on Artificial Intelligence, Data and Robotics. They have amassed 2400 twitter followers and the website has received 13,000 page views.

Our second startup has 6 young women who are working towards establishing their own digital design agency. With a revenue of $750, they are close to breaking even.

We are very excited to see what these "mini-startups" can achieve and help Khud become a sustainable non-profit!

We were honored to host Dr. Ahmed Arshad, the Vice Chancellor of LUMS, for Demo Day. Children from our edtech programs across the 4 schools in Lahore showcased their efforts in cutting edge digital areas. Starting with younger children who were beginning their journey in digital literacy to young women entrepreneurs.

Four years into our journey, Khud’s vision of end to end digital literacy is now taking shape:

Introduction to Computer: learning how to type and operate a computer

Presentation and Storytelling: learning a new topics (e.g. Artificial Intelligence) and developing a presentation

Video Editing: creating and editing videos (this can easily lead to vocational work as emphasis on video content is ever increasing)

If you know how to use a keyboard, the world (of information) is all yours…

The journey of a typical student in Khud’s Digital Program starts with the keyboard. They start off with Intro to Computer class and progress over the course of 3 years, to acquire a digital skill of their interest for e.g, Video-Editing, Graphic Design or Programming.

Haider, a recently enrolled student, has successfully completed step one of our program by learning to type! Let’s help him continue his digital literacy journey...

Please visit our crowdfunding campaign and donate to help us take this journey to completion. You can make change happen. Let’s join hands to give these brilliant kids a fair chance to live the life they deserve!

Video editing is not just a skill - it is an art! And it requires patience and a lot of hard work to perfect. One of our Grade 9 students, Zain, has shown great promise at a very young age.

He not only grasped the basics very quickly but he has also started making some interesting videos of his own. Zain is often to be found in the computer lab working on his videos, even after school timings. He now wants to master advanced skills so that we could create professional videos and help support his family, right from the comfort of his village.

There are many more eager students like Zain, who have an appetite to learn. All they need is the right opportunity…

Please visit our crowdfunding campaign and donate to help us take this journey to completion. You can make change happen. Let’s join hands to give these brilliant kids a fair chance to live the life they deserve!

On the 12th April 2019, our students visited LUMS to present their projects to the School of Education. The students reached LUMS around the afternoon and their visit started at the infamous PDC - LUMS cafeteria. They were extremely intrigued by the fact that students were not bound to wear any uniform and were not carrying any school bags.

The students went on to present their respective projects and that resulted in quite a round of applause from everyone present in the room. They couldn’t believe that students from underprivileged schools in Pakistan could come up with such brilliant projects.

Post the presentations, students attended an informative talk on Automation by Salahuddin Khawaja at National Incubation Center Lahore, LUMS followed by a quick visit to the Milky Way Galaxy lab, under construction for future experimentation. This particular episode was by far their favorite part of the day. They were appreciated by the entire LUMS crowd for their questions and efforts. Their day of adventure ended with a quick cup of tea and cookies.

Khud Initiative is currently supporting local young women entrepreneurs at two of its collaborating institutions to empower them and help them master soft skills for their startups. Motivating these underprivileged yet talented women to come everyday fighting against all odds can prove to be quite a challenge. For this, we try to keep up the spirit through motivational videos and various other activities.

Fatima Rizwan visits TechCloud9

This time around we wanted to show these young women, a live example of how far hard work and courage can take a woman, even in an under-represented (tech) space of Pakistan. We invited Fatima Rizwan, founder & CEO of TechJuice- Pakistan’s leading technology and startup related platform. Fatima was kind enough to accept the invitation and managed to visit both our collaborating institutions, despite Lahore’s menacing traffic.

Fatima had an interactive session with all the girls. She reassured them that hard work is always rewarded one way or the other. She explained how her own journey started with small freelance projects and discussed the available platforms these girls can benefit from by creating their portfolios and finding projects. She was very impressed with the work done by these girls- despite the challenges they face. The girls opened up about their daily difficulties, while Fatima offered them tips that could help make the journey a little easier.

The girls also had their own set of interesting questions regarding Fatima’s journey and her startup, after which the session concluded. The session ended on a very high morale and discussions on future possibilities of collaborations between Khud Initiative and TechJuice.

We were honored to host Dr. Ahmed Arshad, the Vice Chancellor of LUMS, for Demo Day. Children from our edtech programs across the 4 schools in Lahore showcased their efforts in cutting edge digital areas. Starting with younger children who were beginning their journey in digital literacy to young women entrepreneurs.

Dr. Arshad appreciated Khud’s “tremendous vision” of trying to tackle Pakistan’s education crises in a disruptive way. Given his background in Educational Psychology, he was particularly impressed how young children were able to confidently present what they had learned via Khud’s edtech programs. Dr. Arshad and other guests noted how university students and in some cases professionals, can’t present with such confidence!

The children in our programs are disadvantaged with limited, if any, access to technology. But, they are just like other children in that they have the curiosity and an eagerness to learn. Tapping into that is the fuel that propels the children through Khud’s edtech program towards digital literacy.

Four years into our journey, Khud’s vision of end to end digital literacy is now taking shape:

Video Editing: creating and editing videos (this can easily lead to vocational work as emphasis on video content is ever increasing)

Software Programming (starting with Scratch and moving onto Python)

After acquiring digital skills, children can self-learn other more advanced areas and uplift themselves and their families out of poverty. In that spirit, Khud is establishing “mini-startups” to facilitate the journey. A group of young women, who had never heard the concept of a blog, are now running an automation blog: Autome.me. We are wishing them success!

In the Q&A session, the students were extremely excited to ask Dr. Arshad about possible future collaborations with LUMS. Students of Grade 7 and 8 inquired the best approach in to get admitted to LUMS as well as other leading universities in Pakistan. Dr. Arshad explained how National Outreach Program caters to such underprivileged yet brilliant students of Pakistan. The children appreciated that there is a path for them to also get a world class education.

Note from the VC:

“LUMS alum Salah Khawaja, Class of BSc 97 gives new meaning to giving back. Despite a trailblazing career and a prominent role at the Bank of America, he started Khud - an EdTech initiative focused on giving underprivileged children digital literacy. With a bit of help from his uncle (Naseem Iqbal - a successful businessman based in Lahore) children have taught themselves python programming, design skills and tool based applications. I saw 6 presentations under a makeshift tent projected on a broken brick wall. It was all surreal but frankly incredible 21st century learning. It’s the kind of giving with a multiplier effect that is infinite. Thank you Salah. We need more role models like you.”

Four years into Khud’s journey, we are now very excited to formalize our edtech programs and scale. We need all the help - please volunteer with or support us financially.

It is not every day that you hear grade 7 kids participating in a university level bootcamp- especially those hailing from the underprivileged strata of the society. On 19th January, 2019 the young stars from Khud raised many an eyebrow when they participated in the bootcamp organized by TechJuice at the University of Central Punjab.

The one-day bootcamp on Python covered an intense 4-hour curriculum designed to give participants complete, basic programming skills to use in their studies or workplaces. The bootcamp featured speakers and mentors from Arbisoft, one of the most prominent software houses in Pakistan.

Despite their young age, our kids were able to successfully grasp most of the python related concepts delivered at the bootcamp. This was largely possible due to their training in the programming course that was part of Khud’s digital curriculum. The mentors were very happy to see the excitement and confidence our students had shown. The bootcamp successfully managed to provide the much-needed exposure to the kids.

We would like to thank Techjuice for letting our kids be a part of this event. And wish them good luck with such future initiatives and look forward to continue participating in such events and in greater numbers.

25th of December 2018 is the day we have all been waiting for. The day when all of the Khud family, including students, teachers, volunteers, mentors and patrons got together for an annual Demo Day!

All of our collaborating schools made conveyance and arrangements for their respective students to assist participation in the Demo Day. The event not only provided students a platform to showcase and present their progress and projects but also provided a much-needed exposure.

Many renowned names from the education sector and tech industries attended the event. Besides applauding the students for the great show, they also provided them with their valuable feedback.

The participating students invested a lot of effort in preparing the presentations and they were able to put up a marvelous show which was appreciated by all the guests. It was very heartwarming to see the underprivileged children discussing such complex ideas and future technologies. The whole event successfully established the fact that these students have a great potential and better opportunities can bring out the best in them.

Here’s to another year’s journey where we aim to equip more and more youth from the underprivileged areas with digital skills so that they may prepare themselves for the jobs in the future!

The basic reason of poor education system in under-developed countries is the lack, or an absolute absence, of good teachers. Every new phase of information technology has predicted that books will become obsolete. Books, however, have always proven to be resilient! But digital education can surely complement them and if executed properly can do wonders, especially in a country like ours. Paying more to teachers in a hope to get better educators is unfortunately not a practical solution.

In such a scenario, EdTech can be our country’s best bet and we, at Khud, are set out on a mission to prove that. Through this, we use our funds on gathering resources for digital education, rather than spending them on teachers. It doesn’t mean simply dumping a bunch of computers in schools will make the children learn everything. What we actually do is to provide our collaborating schools with self-explanatory digital curriculum that can be used by the students with little or no aid from teachers.

Many wonder how a system based on technology can be successfully executed in a country which mostly doesn’t even have the basic infrastructure. But here we are, going forward with our mission and making impact despite all the challenges.

Our goal, however, has never been to replace books and teachers altogether. There are some great teachers that believe in our cause and work with us selflessly. EdTech actually allows us to complement their hard-work and enables us to package and scale the delivery of education on a level that is simply not possible via traditional education system.